“Last year was a tough year for him and he probably didn’t quite ‘fit’ as he did in the past,” said Julien. “So this is an opportunity to come to a team that, I think, will definitely use his type of player to its advantage…our scoring chances were there last year and our finish wasn’t that good.

“And he’s normally a guy who finishes well.”

As straightforward a guy as there is in hockey, Julien simply could not mask his pleasure at the B’s latest signing.

“There is no doubt that our organization is pretty happy to have him,” said the B’s head coach. “Again, you always try and find players that fit into what you want to do and we were pretty clear at the end of the year that we wanted to improve our offensive numbers.